Lucas: #3 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) (12 page)

He waited for Sergius to emerge from the tunnel.

“To the right,” Sergius said quietly once they had replaced the grate. “We need to hurry.”

Lucas nodded. The only things on his mind were finding Taylor and escaping.

Chapter Eighteen

Taylor looked around the small room she’d been placed in with the other women. Chairs lined the walls with a large window on the opposite side of the room. Fasteners connected small clear tubes to the chairs and the wall. The ends of the tubes all led to a plastic barrel. A closed wooden box sat on a small glass table in the center of the room.

She frowned at the set up. Something just wasn’t right about this. Her stomach knotted.

“Sit down, and I will hook you in,” Kay said firmly.

The other women quietly took their seats against the walls. Jade glanced over to her, and for a moment, she thought the small woman might say something, but instead she also sat down.

Kay disappeared into a closet and emerged with a cart covered with what looked like IV needles. She wasn’t sure. She was no nurse.

Taylor blinked. If the women had all been given drugs, that might explain their behavior. She needed to get out of there, but there was no way she could escape without Lucas.

Kay moved to each woman and connected an IV to their hand and then attached it to the tubes against the wall.

“What the fuck?” Taylor whispered.

Kay stomped over and glared at her.

“You might think yourself special, Ms. Mills, but I can assure you that you are all equal in the eyes of the gods. Now sit down before you are forced to sit down.”

Taylor raised her chin slightly in defiance.

“I’d like to see you try,” she said with all the hatred she felt. Bigger women than Kay had tried to keep her down.

Even if she couldn’t escape, she didn’t have to submit to whatever weird drug scheme the Azilians had going. There was no way in hell she was submitting without a fight.

“Very well,” Kay said with a smile. “Please help her sit,” she called over her shoulder.

A large brown-robed man stepped into the room and walked over to Taylor. He frowned and grabbed for her.

She scratched at his face. The man let out a yelp but managed to grab her wrist and then her other arm.

Kay stepped forward now, her face red, her eyes bulging.

“You are one of the chosen, and all you do is spit in the face of our gods,” she said tightly. She shook. Little pieces of brown and gray hair fell from the tight bun on her head. “Do you know how blessed you are to be picked by the gods? Not all of us have been so lucky.”

Taylor grinned as the man forced her into the seat. “Feeling a little salty you weren’t one of the chosen?”

Faster than Taylor would have thought, Kay’s hand cracked her across the face. The stars took a few seconds to clear from her eyes.

“You can’t harm a chosen,” one of the women said.

Others chimed in with the same. “It’s not right. It’s not the will of the gods.”

Kay stepped back and stared at her hand for a moment in shock. She shook herself before stepping over to the wooden box.

“I had to,” she said, her voice shaking, almost as if she were talking to the box. “I had no choice. She forced me to.”

Her hands shook as she opened the lid. A bright blue stone sat inside. Blinding blue light filled the room. Taylor tried to squint, but the intense light forced her to close her eyes.

The hum she’d heard enveloped her. This time the loud hum overwhelmed her, rattling her teeth. Ache seeped into her bones.

It had to stop. Someone had to make it stop.

A scream pierced the air. Her eyes snapped open.

Kay glowed the same brilliant blue as the stone. A moment later she was gone, the glass behind her now visible. Lucas stood on the other side.

Taylor’s mind took a few seconds to catch up. She looked over to where Kay had stood. No body remained, only a puddle on the floor. Her stomach lurched, and bile burned her throat.

“She has been reclaimed,” the brown-robed man said from beside her.

“She has been reclaimed,” the other women echoed.

“Taylor,” Lucas mouthed, his presence seeming so far away.

The throbbing pulse from the box overwhelmed Taylor.

Lucas stared at the puddle on the ground that had once been a woman. Damn Azilians. The rest didn’t even have the decency to be disgusted. They almost acted like the sick act pleased them.

He needed to move. The man holding Taylor had been so focused on the woman being liquefied he hadn’t spotted Lucas yet.

Anger coursing through him, Lucas sprinted around the wall to the room. The man dropped his hands away from Taylor the instant the hybrid came into view.

The Azilian ran to the door of the room and reached for his gun.

Not fast enough. Not even close.

Pushing down some bloodlust, Lucas slammed his fist into the man’s head. The Azilian smacked against the frame of the door and crumpled to the ground, groaning.

“He’s been touched,” one of the women said.

One of the women stood and stepped toward him, the tubing connecting to her stretching out. The rest rose, holding out their arms.

Lucas stepped back, unsure what they wanted.

“There’s another,” another woman said and pointed at Sergius, who was waiting as a lookout behind Lucas.

“We’ve got to go,” Sergius shouted. “They must have a camera for the room.”

Lucas nodded.

He pushed through the women groping at him and hurried to Taylor. “We need to go.”

She nodded and stood on shaky feet but stopped when two of the women stepped in front of her.

“She stays with us,” they said in unison. “She has been chosen.”

“Stop being so fucking creepy, and move out of my way,” Taylor said. She swayed a little as she spoke.

One turned and gripped her arm hard.

“You stay with us.” She hissed.

Lucas glanced among the gathered women. Taking down a gun-toting man was one thing. About the last thing he wanted to do was attack a bunch of mind-controlled women.

He gritted his teeth, trying to think of the best way to rescue Taylor without hurting the women.

“Let her go,” someone shouted.

The women turned to look at a small woman who was now standing over by the box with the stone.

“The stone.” The man on the floor managed to say as he tried to slide himself further toward it.

“Let her go, or I smash it,” the small woman said.

She picked up the stone, and bright blue light pulsed through the air.

Lucas squinted and averted his gaze.

The small woman held it over her head, and the woman holding Taylor let go and backed away. The rest all stepped away from her as well.

“Jade,” Taylor whispered as the two made their way to the door. “That stone is evil. You shouldn’t hold it. You’ve seen what it does.”

The other women slowly backed away farther.

Lucas locked his hand around Taylor’s wrist. He still didn’t understand all the creepy crap that was going on, but that wasn’t his concern, saving his woman was.

“We need to go,” he said, glancing between Taylor and Jade.

They nodded, and the group hurried into the hall, the stone still in Jade’s hands.

Sergius looked at him with questions in his expression, but Lucas really had no answers about the woman. For now, all he knew was that she helped protect Taylor, and that was good enough for him.

The doors down the hall burst open, and five men stepped in, all holding guns.

“Freeze!” one of them shouted.

Jade shook as she held up the stone.

“Catch,” she said and tossed it into the air.

The men yelled and dropped their guns. They rushed toward the stone.

Once it left Jade’s hand, she crumpled into Sergius’s arms.

With that one move, she gave them the chance they needed.

Lucas grabbed Taylor, and the women-toting hybrids raced down the hall. Shouts echoed around them, followed by footfalls, but it was too late. There was no way a normal human could keep up with hybrids.

The hybrids sprinted with the women in their arms until they arrived at the grate to the tunnel. The quickly hurried inside. The man from earlier still lay on the ground, and the shouts and footsteps of other filled the hallways around and above them.

Taylor clutched Lucas tightly. He could smell her fear, hear her pounding heart. He’d save her. They were so damn close now.

“This way,” Sergius said from in front.

They ran through the tunnels until he could smell the fresh air ahead.

With one kick, Lucas removed the water grate, and they were out in the darkness of the forest.

“You came for me,” Taylor whispered.

“There’s no way I couldn’t.”

Chapter Nineteen

Lucas watched as Nyx closed the door to the bedroom where they had placed Jade. She still hadn’t woken up after fainting. They all worried. She’d handled that dangerous stone.

Something about the mysterious blue stone caused that reaction, and for all they knew, she’d suffer some sort of permanent damage from exposure, let alone from the bizarre mind-control effects it seemed to have.

Still, not that any of them really knew what she was like before. She’d aided a Vestal of one of their hybrids, and she’d earned their respect and protection for now.

Nyx frowned at Lucas, but it was Sergius who she spoke to first.

“She’ll be fine,” she said quietly. “We’ll let her rest. Take it from someone who had to deal with that kind of shit.”

Sergius nodded. “I’ll wait here.” He sat on the couch.

Lucas watched as his friend made himself comfortable. One second was all it took sometimes, and apparently Sergius had some sort of moment or connection with this woman.

Nyx nodded to the door, and Lucas followed.

“Where’s Taylor?” she asked.

Lucas nodded to his cabin not far away.

“She’s at my place,” he said. “I thought she should have a moment to rest without people bombarding her with questions. Seeing that woman turned to liquid has shaken her more than she lets on. Fuck. It’s messing with me.”

Nyx nodded. They had all seen what the stone could do. Some things you just couldn’t unsee.

The door creaked, and he turned. Rem stepped inside.

“Courtney is staying with us tonight,” he said. “She knows the truth now. The more people outside our group that know, the more likely our secret is to get out.”

“Yeah, Courtney isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” Nyx said with a snort. “I don’t think you have to worry about that with the way Marcus is acting.”

Rem frowned. “That almost worries me more. His knowledge of women is primitive to say the least.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Nyx mumbled.

“And what about the Azilians?” Lucas asked.

Rem shook his head. “I don’t think they are an immediate threat. They have their own reasons to keep their mouth shut and not draw attention, and I don’t think they want to gear up for war.”

“Even though we just raided their compound?”

Rem grinned. “You did manage not to kill anyone.”

Lucas shrugged.

Rem’s grin vanished. “I think we’ll be fine, at least not judging by their leader. She doesn’t want war either, not with us. Not yet.” He frowned and ran a hand over his dark hair. “She’s smart. There’s something that she’s waiting on. I think she wants to use that stone to pass judgment somehow on everyone but can’t seem to get it to do that just yet. She’s got some sort of long play that goes well beyond skirmishing with us.” He shook his head. “Not all that long ago, I would have thought it was all just religious ranting, but we’ve all seen that this goes beyond mere belief or schemes. Whatever we want to believe, we have to accept there is definitely dangerous power involved here.”

Unease soaked Lucas. “And when she gets her chance to judge everyone?”

The question hung heavy in the air between them.

Rem sighed loudly. “If that happens, I think we’ll have a war we can’t ignore.”

They each nodded, not really wanting to think about where things might be headed or their role in the whole matter. At least when the Horatius Group attacked the Luna hybrids, they didn’t use mystical stones that turned people into liquid.

Rem clapped him on the shoulder.

“Go home to your woman,” he said. “Enjoy every day of freedom you can. We’ve struggled for our freedom, earned it with blood. We’ll fight against anyone who’d try and take it away.”

Lucas nodded and turned toward the cabin.

“Oh, and Lucas,” Rem said.

“Yes?”

“Let her know we’ll get her the money and help she needs for her ranch. She’s family now.”

* * *

Taylor rested on a couch in Lucas’s cabin. She’d been quiet for most of the trek to the cabin, content with the comfort felt in the hybrid’s arms.

The horror she witnessed now replayed itself in her mind, which found the memory still difficult to process.

She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to process it. Kay was a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die for it, let alone in such an awful way.

Tired of sitting on the couch where Lucas placed her, she moved around the small cabin. There wasn’t a ton of stuff on the walls. Everything was simple and straight-forward. Just like Lucas.

“You could fix it up how you like it,” Lucas said from the door.

She had been so engrossed in checking out the room she hadn’t even heard him come in.

“Jade?”

He shook his head. “She’s still out, but she likely just needs some rest. Who knows how long she was there and subject to all their evil crap.”

Taylor nodded, although she was just sure the evil stone had more to do with it.

“Wait, did you say decorate?” she said.

Lucas walked over to where she stood and pulled her against him for a soft kiss. When she pulled back to look at him, he smiled down at her with warm blue eyes.

“This place is for us. We can do what we need to,” he said.